Morning Buzz: Monday 3.25.13

California voters now see undocumented workers as a positive economic force in the state — and they overwhelmingly favor allowing a path to citizenship for the millions of illegal immigrants in the country. Only 19 percent told a new USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Times poll that those in the country illegally should be required to leave the United States. LAT

Controller Wendy Greuel pulled off a surprising coup last week when she secured the endorsement of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor despite an acknowledgment by many labor leaders that they feel closer philosophically to her opponent, Councilman Eric Garcetti. The endorsement was in many ways, though, more about Garcetti than about Greuel. Jim Newton/LAT op-ed

Los Angeles is "about to lose its bad boy, larger-than-life chief executive, whose term is up, as Mr. Villaraigosa put it with more than a glint of wistfulness, 'on June 30 at 11:59 and 59 seconds.'” NYT

Villaraigosa is making one last big push on two of his signature proposals – privatizing operations at the Convention Center and the Los Angeles Zoo. DN

Greuel will hold a 12:30 p.m. presser outside the Valley Performing Arts Center in Northridge to discuss her role in recovery efforts from the 1994 earthquake.

After losing his race for the City Council, Matt Szabo has returned to the staff of Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. DN/Rick Orlov's Tipoffs

Newly elected councilman Felipe Fuentes has gone back on the state Assembly payroll, as an $8,500-a-month aide to Assemblyman Raul Bocanegra, while waiting to take office on July 1. Fuentes was termed out of the Assembly himself. LAT

The final tally of outstanding ballots in the March 5 Los Angeles election is scheduled to begin Tuesday at 9 a.m. at Piper Technical Center.

The Department of Water & Power announced that an employee was found deceased at the utility's Haynes Generating Station early on Saturday morning. The cause of death was under investigation.

Media and books

Rupert Murdoch wants the Los Angeles Times and possibly other Tribune newspapers and is said to be working behind the scenes to obtain an FCC waiver that would allow News Corp. to own newspapers and TV stations in the same city. NYT

The "Tonight Show's" prospective move back to Manhattan after decades in Burbank is "an abject example of why runaway film and television production is spiraling into an economic crisis for Greater Los Angeles." Hollywood Reporter

Josh Dickey, the film editor at Variety, is leaving to become managing editor of TMZ. The post has been unfilled for four years. Founder Harvey Levin will focus more on TV and new ventures. And: NY-based business writer Jill Goldsmith and creative director Paula Taylor also have left Variety, and Nikki Finke and Mike Fleming of Deadline have been asked to write for the new weekly print magazine from Variety. Deadline, The Wrap

KCET has mapped the work locations of 128 Archdiocese of Los Angeles priests whose files were released in January in connection with allegations of sexual abuse. KCET

The San Francisco Chronicle has put much of its web content behind a paywall — including the announcement that explains the paywall. Romenesko

Bernadette Murphy, an author who teaches creative writing at the Antioch University Los Angeles MFA program, writes about the trauma and guilt of hitting a 91-year-old pedestrian with her car. The Rumpus

Anthony Lewis, a former New York Times reporter and columnist whose work won two Pulitzer Prizes and transformed American legal journalism, died on Monday at his home in Cambridge, Mass. He was 85. Lewis most notably covered the Supreme Court. NYT

Joe Weider, the bodybuilding pioneer who created a multimillion-dollar fitness publishing empire and mentored a young Arnold Schwarzenegger from the time the future actor and California governor was a struggling unknown, died Saturday at a Los Angeles area hospital. He was 93. LAT